We recently launched our iPad tour design that is a complete re-write of our code, specifically for the iPad. It utilizes what is called HTML5 and features a complete interactive floor plan where you can point and click your way through the property using your iPad. If you have an iPad, just type in one of your tour links into Safari and see how it looks. Or just use our demo house address of www.111anystreet.com.
Now, we are pleased to announce you can also use this same design as your PC/laptop tour viewer! To select this as your tour template, just select the Tabbed Tour as your tour frame type on the form as you create a new tour, or on Edit Details for existing tours. If you want this as your default tour frame going forward, just edit your profile and select the Tabbed Tour as your default tour frame.
To get a peak at the Tabbed Tour, click the screen shot below or click here to see how it will look. It is similar to the iPad tour with a clean design, but for the PC, it does feature a header at the top of the tour that always shows your contact info, as well as the tour tile and address. In addition, the content area adjusts for the user’s screen. For example, if someone has a laptop that has a typical resolution of 1280×800, the tour adjusts to fit it. If a user has a 23 inch 1920×1080 monitor, the tour adjusts for that size as well! If the user’s computer or device supports Adobe’s Flash, we still show the content in flash, otherwise it does use HTML5 (like for the iPad).
Not only is the design clean and simple, it is a great solution for listings with very large floor plans as well! The floor plan area is much larger, and because it does adjust to the screen resolution, it can make the floor plan look very large. In addition, we are working to add another way to look at the floor plan to show it in the whole content area, with the photos popping on top of the plan, just by clicking a button on the tour. We call this the embedded view, and we hope to add it to this view in the next month or so.
We hope you enjoy these enhancements. As always, this view is available for all active tours.
New help videos have been added to our help video library. Click here to see our Help Videos. I would like to highlight two videos that are very common customer care issues. We hope the videos will help!
First, how to download and save photos to your computer, for use on your MLS or for your own marketing brochures. Click to see this video. Note, we are very interested in helping make your life easier…we do automated tour linking, and in a few cases, we upload photos, to the local MLS. If you would like us to pursue this with your MLS, we are more than happy to do that, but you first need to contact your MLS and see if they allow it. If not, ask them if they would be willing to work with us to do automated tour linking and photo uploads. If they say “NO,” go higher up the chain…. 🙂
Second, how to customize your tour and flyer colors to match your branding. We suggest using the browsers Firefox or Chrome because both of these have free plugins you can install that will tell you the color code of anything on a web page. Just click the video to see how you can customize the colors to exactly match!
We are pleased to announce several new enhancements to the FloorPlanOnline marketing system:
1. Enhanced iPad Tour Viewer
2. Separate Photo & Video Editing
3. Voice Over | Custom Audio Upload capability
Details for each enhancement are below.
Enhanced iPad Viewer.
We have completely re-written our tour viewer for the iPad which features your tour content in a very clean user interface. Now, you can get a fully functional tour experience, including the video and the interactive floorplan tour on your ipad! Just point and click your way around the floor plan with ease, just like the regular PC experience. It is also optimized for the screen orientation. Hold your iPad in landscape mode, and the content tabs are on top and the content layout is optimized for that view. Rotate the iPad to portrait mode, and the tabs move to the side and content shifts for that orientation as well. We believe it is the most advanced and useful tour viewer for the iPad. Plus, if you have an Apple TV device, you can even play the video on your TV! How cool is that?
Suggestions. In order to make the iPad tour look its best, we suggest you add a marketing description, complete the property details, and add features. We have a details tab that really showcases the property details. We even include the PDF of your flyer and printable floor plans. For older tours, video might not be viewable on your iPad tour due to a different format needed to display the video on the iPad. This can easily be added by just going into your account to the Manage Tour page, then click Edit Tour, then Edit Photos/Video. Hit Save and Close, and your video will get processed by our video server. We have already recreated over 1000 videos for tours going back to the end of October. So if your tour does not have a Video tab on the tour, just go in and edit it, or email us and we can re-queue all of your videos. One other point. There is no RoomPlanner tab on the iPad. This tool is built using flash, and there is a lot of development work to port it over to the iPad….so until that happens (or flash comes to the iPad (likely never)), the RoomPlanner will not be on the iPad version.
This enhancement is included at no additional cost for any active tour, and one reason it took us awhile to implement, so it works on all older tours! Try it – just go to www.111anystreet.com on your iPad. Note…this tour also works on any computer. There are a few tweaks we want to do, but eventually, it can also be your default tour template for the PC as well. Click here to see the PC version on your laptop or desktop.
Separate Photo & Video Editing.
We now have a way for you to separately edit which photos show on the Photo Gallery and WalkThru Video views. It is all done through the same edit page – we just added another check box to show a photo on the Photo View or Video view, or both. When you upload, all photos are added to both by default, but you can adjust what shows by going to the Edit Tour option on the Manage Tours page. With this (and the custom audio tool mentioned below), you can further differentiate the photo and video views.
Suggestions. We highly recommend you keep your video between 1 to 2 minutes in length. Most users will not sit through a 5 minute long video…but if you highlight the best photos taken, add descriptive text, and now, even add a voice over, you can really make your video a multi-media marketing piece that makes you and your listing stand out. And don’t forget, you can easily and automatically add your listing video to either your own custom YouTube channel (or your company’s channel provided you give us the login info) or just upload it to our YouTube channel. It is FREE, and it is a great way to get additional search engine (“SEO”) benefits. For example, once your video has been uploaded and indexed by Google, the listing video typically shows towards the top on page 1 of the search results. Just this little feature can show your seller that you are working hard to sell their home and differentiate it from all of the others.
If you like the Dashboard view on your tour, pick a different photo to start the photo or video view, and now you have 2 different images on the Dashboard view in the 2.0 tour.
Voice Over | Custom Audio Upload.
This is something that has been asked for over the years…and we now have brought it to fruition! You can now upload your own voiceover to the video so you can describe the property in your own way. Google is now indexing video text, so this also helps with the SEO of your tours, and you. Plus, since we upload your video for free to YouTube, it gets better indexed by Google, since they own YouTube. Read more on that here. You can also upload a file with your own music. Just go to Manage Tours, select Edit Tour and then Edit Video. You will see the button to upload the custom audio file. Right now, we ONLY accept MP3 file types. There are lots of free converters online if you have the file in a different type.
A word of caution: While you in theory can upload your own music with a voiceover, the music industry is on a war path about copyright violations. Using music on a virtual tour is for a commercial purpose that requires a license from the copyright holder. All of our music is validly licensed by companies the create or manage the music. Therefore, if you have your own music you want to use, just make sure you have a valid license to use it. Real songs from real artists generally mean big money for a right to use – like thousands of dollars….so if we do find “brand-name artist” music being used, we will be forced to remove the file. They have ways of electronically monitoring websites, and you do not want to have to pay fines or get sued…Neither do we….
Some exciting news on the flyer front. First, we are working on integrating with a printing partner, so you can get your flyers printed on high quality paper and sent right to your door. We will also work to integrate with select printing companies, like xpressdocs and Merrill, so you just send the PDF or even the images to them. Please contact us if you have a specific request as we are just starting to look into what is possible with other printing companies.
Custom Flyers!
We also now support a completely custom flyer option for your account or company account. Starting at a $399 set-up fee, we can create a unique flyer design for you and your company, that can be the default flyer template for all of your tours! Click here for an example of a custom flyer created for Haring Realty. All Haring agents have to do is add their text, pick which photos they want, and the rest just happens. And because we produce a high quality PDF, it is print ready. It is a huge time saver for agents or agent assistants. We are taking requests…just complete the form below with some basic information.
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The FloorPlanOnline Team would like to wish all of our customers and business partners a very happy holiday season. We appreciate your past patronage and look forward to 2012!
We have some exciting things planned for new features and functionality, including a brand new enhanced iPad tour viewer, complete with an interactive floorplan. It is a very clean and functional design and will be the best iPad tour viewer out there! So stay tuned right after the new year for that release.
We are also working on adding custom audio clips to your video, separate editing capability for the photo and video view, so you can pick what photos show where. Video clip integration will also come later…so you will soon have a very easy tool to create a great property listing video, and get it uploaded to YouTube, all for free! We are also working to add better floorplan tools, including the ability to upload floor plans and use them without us redrawing them. Just a little work needed to get the floorplan on the property flyers.
Speaking of flyers, we are also working on integrating with a printing partner, so you can get your flyers printed on high quality paper and sent right to your door. We will also work to integrate with select printing companies, like xpressdocs and Merrill., so you just send the PDF or even the images to them. Please contact us if you have a specific request as we are just starting to look into what is possible with other printing companies.
Custom Flyers!
We also now support a completely custom flyer option for your account or company account. Starting at a $399 set-up fee, we can create a unique flyer design for you and your company, that can be the default flyer template for all of your tours! Click here for an example of a custom flyer created for Haring Realty. All Haring agents have to do is add their text, pick which photos they want, and the rest just happens. And because we produce a high quality PDF, it is print ready. It is a huge time saver for agents or agent assistants. We are taking requests…just complete the form below with some basic information.
In closing, we hope 2011 was a great year, and I will you all success in 2012.
Best regards,
Kris Cone, CEO
FloorPlanOnline
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tour, or on Edit Details for existing tours. If you want this as your default tour frame going forward, just edit your profile and select the Tabbed Tour as your default tour frame.
